I enjoyed the first 70% or so of this as much as I remembered, and the buddy read with Kate was a blast. My enthusiasm flagged for a while after that, and it became increasingly difficult to stick with it and finish it. My attention really wandered at the end.

I still love the characters as much as ever, but despite my best efforts to ignore them, the editing issues really got in the way. Not only the plot inconsistencies and stupidities, but also some significant pacing issues. Still, with major editing this book could be every bit as wonderful as the rose-colored glasses made it seem. In lieu of editing, skimming works reasonably well to compensate. Ty and Zane make it worth reading.

I originally rated this 5 stars, and would probably rate it 3 based on this read, so I'm compromising with 4 now. I've always thought of Sticks & Stones as my favorite in the series, so I'm eager to move on to it now and see if that's still true.